Progress In Darfur

Here's a story from MSNBC about a 26,000-member UN peacekeeping force bound for Sudan by December. It's probably too little, and certainly too late, considering that so many people have already died. But too little too late is better than nothing ever. I've heard some crazy reasons for not taking action in Darfur sooner. It's really very hard for me to believe that race has nothing to do with it. And I'm not a "Discrimination!" kind of guy. A UN peacekeeping force there won't fix the problem, but sometimes a band-aid does stop the bleeding. I'm happy to see SOMETHING going on besides talk. Pray that it goes farther towards real peace.

Another Year Gone By

Wow, sitting here in the afterglow of the big surprise party (you know, for my blog, who turned two today) I can hardly believe that it's been two years. And the look on my blog's face when we all yelled, "SURPRISE!" is etched into my virtual memory forever. In case you missed it, there were digital balloons, animated cake, and .gif cream cones. The only thing I didn't like was that all the banners that should have said, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY GTO, Fish, and whatever!" had flashing ads all over them instead. Until I enabled Adblock, heh heh. Then the party really took off.

This is just plain dumb, so I'm gunna stop right there. But you did miss a heck of a party!

Getting Caught Up

The long weekend of July 4 thru the 8th was nice. It was relaxing, and I started to remember what it's like to not be in a hurry. I wrote a couple weeks ago that life has been a little swamped recently. I had hoped that rush was coming to an end, and it may still be. I got the brakes in my truck, fixed the garage door,we got a new car for my wife and sold her old one. We were getting caught up at work, even worked some 8-hour days lately. But just when I could taste the slow-down, we got a couple of big jobs in at work (and of course they're hot). And the wife's new car quit on us this afternoon. It felt like we were headed back in the wrong direction. Besides that, I've been staying up later at night to watch TV or play on the computer because I refuse to let my life consist of work/shower/eat/sleep and repeat. The drawback of course, is that you're tired the next day. I started getting frazzled, but caught myself. I remembered how little it ever helps to flip out when things don't go your way.

I convinced myself that after one more busy week, things will be looking pretty good at work.
After about an hour out in the garage, I think all the car may need is a new battery. It doesn't look like the electrical meltdown that I originally thought it was. That'll take WAY less time than fixing her old car, so I'm ahead there. I'm glad that one's gone. I really-really hope that the new battery (which we'll be getting tomorrow after work) gets her car on the road again. Then I have high hopes that by this time next week I may be sane again.

Two-Part Plan For Fishing

This coming Thursday, Part One of my plan is to get out fishing and spend some time relaxing on the water with my dad, my brother, hopefully our boys, and probably my brand-new brother-in-law, Dean. Part Two of my plan is to catch more and bigger fish than Dean does. See, I like to catch largemouth bass and northerns, maybe a muskie now and then, and I like to give the fish a sporting chance. No electronics, that is. Artificial bait. Texas Tea. All right forget Texas Tea. Who knows where that came from. Texas probably.

But Dean is one of these guys that I think will go after anything with fins, and use everything short of dynamite to catch it. I'll concede that he probably does catch more fish than I do, and if you ask him, he'll say that makes him the better fisherman. I say he's the better fisherman the way Barry Bonds is [will be] a better home-run hitter than Hank Aaron. There's always gunna be that asterisk.

Bonds*
Dean*

Does that even count?